Apple Cored
by ariescelestial
Summary: She keeps him fed and healthy, as healthy as anyone can be with mako poisoning intense enough to kill the mind.


Tifa slices through the apple deftly, checking that each piece is small enough to be eaten without any biting or chewing. It'll be a sad, sad thing if Cloud chokes to death after surviving everything else life has thrown at him. The thought brings a tremulous smile to her lips before she forces a more confident one to face him with. "Ready for lunch, Cloud?"

"…Aa…"

She pretends it's an answer. "Sorry it's apples again. But you like those, right?"

He stretches his head and it flops down without any coordination. 'Better than nothing,' she imagines he's saying. He probably would put on a brave face if he could.

No. If he could, he'd refuse to let Tifa even see him like this, she's sure. He's always hated looking weak—but now…

"Here comes the first one," she says, bringing the first sliver of fruit to the pair of quivering lips. He takes it in, lips pursing around the morsel. The first time she saw him do that, she'd gotten excited over such a small gesture, hopeful that it meant something, that he was getting better.

Somewhere along the way, she's realized it only means that he doesn't have to be hooked up to a drip.

One slice, two slice, three slice. She's done this before. It keeps him fed. Healthy. As healthy as anyone can be with mako poisoning intense enough to kill the mind.

"You know, Cloud…we don't have long before Meteor falls," she says carefully. "You need to wake up soon."

The doctor said talking to him might help. It could establish a sense of familiarity, a connection.

The doctor has also said Cloud's mind is miles away. In a place where no one had ever been.

She pauses in his feeding, her thumb ghosting his chin, and he tracks her fingers on his skin and takes her thumb between his lips, sucking on it gently, his tongue wetting her skin. Looking for food that isn't there. He can't see, no, not like this; his blue eyes glow like sapphires in a slack face, and as beautiful as gemstones are, they don't do a damn thing for sight.

She can't even imagine the place he's in, much less follow him there. A small part of her wonders if she would even want to. She doesn't know who she'd be following—which is a terrible thing to think, but—

He's not the boy she knew in Nibelheim. That Cloud had been…so quiet and shy. Cute, yet determined. And then he'd gone to Midgar and stumbled back into her life seven years later, sick and shaking with convulsions, barely recognizable. When he woke up, the story he told about what had happened in between didn't make sense. Still doesn't make sense.

"And you'd changed," she murmurs aloud. He releases her thumb as his head flops to the side, Adam apple jutting out against pale skin because of the odd pose. She absently wipes her finger dry. "But it'd been a while, right, Cloud?" There's an extra note of perkiness in her voice just for him. Even if he is fake, like Sephiroth said—it's not his fault. He didn't ask to be. And he'd believed so much that he was her Cloud. Even now, if she thought about the illusion of Nibelheim and the sight of Zack that Sephiroth had cast around them, she remembered how calmly he took it in and just as easily put it aside. Because his memories said otherwise—and because she'd never told him anything else. She remembers with heartbreaking clarity: his composure had only broken down when he realized **she** was upset.

"_No matter what anyone else says to me, it's your attitude that counts…_"

"Which shouldn't be true when you're a grown man," she says, somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. "You shouldn't—count on one person. I learned that." So much for her hero: Cloud hadn't been with her when Nibelheim burned, or when she'd slowly recovered from the wound slashed across her torso, or scraped together the gil to repay the bills and feed herself. "Not that you didn't try," she whispers. "I'm sure you did."

She's tried too. Tried to support this man, the one she thought of—still wants to think of—as her childhood friend. Look where he is now, hollowed out by Sephiroth and Hojo's words, in a wheelchair, helpless and **broken**.

_Don't think about it_ but it hurts, aches that the only reason she can open her heart is because she knows he's not listening—his expression hasn't changed one bit, no matter what her tone, no matter what she says, he's halfway across Gaia and even if she shrieks he won't hear a thing and a wracking sob is the only warning she gives herself before tears start rolling. At least the doctor doesn't come to ask what's wrong; no doubt he's heard it all before.

Cloud sounds a bright gurgle, like an infant that's just found a new toy. Tifa presses her hands to her eyes as though to dam the tears, and then rubs harder as she hears the clinic door open. She won't be crying in front of strangers.

"…It's no use…I don't understand a thing, Cloud," she admits, her voice low and raw. "What should I do? What if you never recover?"

Finding Cloud had been a sign, a hope. Shinra hadn't taken everything away; Sephiroth could not destroy everything. But he had. He soon would. And now she couldn't find that hope inside her anymore.


End file.
